I was told that it is no use to try and find the undisputed king of these jungles by riding on one of the elephants, as we did the days before. I was glad. As I had seen this scary video spot on the internet: A tiger jumps on one of these elephants carrying tourists and attacking the “mahoud” (elephant handler). But when they woke me up in the middle of the night to reach the prepared outlook post in time I’d paid a lot to be let in peace…

It took about two hours from the camp “ranthambore bagh” to reach the place by vehicles and on foot. And now it was just me in the well camouflaged tree hut with the local ranger and my cameras. Lans and Panos got into position left and right somewhere in the bamboo and trees. Now that the tension on my Indian buddy’s face becomes obvious, I appreciate their “flanking” of my “fortress”.  It’s still a rare privilege to encounter tigers in the wild and quite a lot of visitors come to these parks and game reserves that’ll never even get a chance to see one! Not to talk about taking pictures! Not to think about real good ones!

The jungle is full of sounds in the early morning, as it is over the day, too. But later one gets more used to this. And suddenly – there is silence in the near surrounding... and I realize that I must have been watched already for a while by that mysterious animal we were waiting for. The game warden has seen it that same second: The head of a mighty male tiger! Just across the little clearing in front of us, few meters away. Clearly it has detected us and looks me straight into the eyes – and my camera.